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Abstract
This paper exposes practices of informal, everyday resistance by slum-dwellers against the implementation of large-scale public housing projects in India. During the last few decades, various large-scale urban projects have been implemented in order to redevelop Indian cities. In these projects, the emphasis is on community participation. By focusing on the local level, we scrutinize how these projects are put into practice. Specifically, we look at how two slum communities react, contest and protest against the implementation of a large-scale public housing project. Using two case studies in Nagpur under the Basic Services to the Urban Poor—an overarching, nation-wide slum-upgrading scheme—this paper explores how standardized, participatory large-scale housing projects often clash with social realities on the ground, which results in various forms of everyday resistance and protest.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Saartje Verbeke (Department of Languages and Cultures, Ghent University) and Koenraad Bogaert (Department of Conflict and Development Studies, Ghent University) for their help and support in conducting this research project. Special thanks to Iris Vandevelde, Andrew Deuchar, Sophie Pascoe, Jane Dyson, Craig Jeffrey, as well as to the three anonymous reviewers and the editor for their helpful comments on earlier drafts. We are especially grateful to all the people in Nagpur who shared their experiences, insights and knowledge with us, and whose strength and courage has inspired this research.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 NSCA is a pseudonym, to protect the name and identity of the NGO and our participants.
2 We have received this information from an unpublished socio-economic survey done by NSCA, based on an earlier study done by ICH.
3 We have de-identified interviewees using a system with numbers. For example, IN29 (F30) is 30-year old, female interviewee n°29 of Indira Nagar.
4 ICH is a pseudonym, to protect the name and identity of the organization.
5 The Indian Law identifies three groups, based on contemporary or historical disadvantage, for its reservation politics: the Scheduled Castes, the Scheduled Tribes, and the Other Backward Castes. ‘These SCs, STs, and OBCs receive a particular number, in proportion to their population, of reserved seats in the public sector, educational institutions, and some legislative institutions’ (Vaid, Citation2014, p. 394).